Week of June 12th

As usual, let’s start with the eurozone economy. At the end of last week, the euro was reaching is lowest point in 4 years[*]. The beginning of the week of worrying too after the canceling – officially for schedule reason – by Berlin of a meeting between Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy [*,*]. However, the Eurogroupe did adopt all the details of the rescue plan for euro countries[*,*]. That would have helped the euro which had a stable week, and even a slight gain[*,*]. Greece continue to be the object of rumors about a possible way out of the euro [*], not true says Athens [*]. I also advice you to have a look at this graphic by the BBC clearly showing the economic situation in Europe.

The world bank is worried of the effect of the European crisis on the world economic growth[*,*], while the European Central Bank keeps its rate to 1 %, at the same as for the last 10 months [*,*]. Mr Trichet, ECB president, says the euro is a credible currency.

About the reforms in discussion to reinforce the euro zone, the finance ministers agreed on a review of national budget by Brussels, review on the general layout of the planned budget only [*,*]. France and Germany call together for a ban of short naked sales – already banned in Germany ; a similar ban is in discussion in France [*,*].

In general, Europe is considering whether or not its institutions need to be changed (and how) to prevent other such crisis[*,*,*,*]. Even more than other countries are not pointed as potential problem sources[*,*].

All these troubles haven’t killed the Euro yet : Estonia will join the monetary union in January 2011 [*,*]

The European Commission announced Wednesday the early end of the blue-fin tuna fishing season to preserve stocks which are at a record low [*,*]. This decisions was first described as final, but French fishermen obtained a derogatory authorization afterward [*]. European fishermen are dissatisfied with e decision.

The Commission also wish to discharge itself with the Genetically Modified Crops issue by authorizing them a priori and leaving to the member states the choice to ban them or not[*], a decision that is not pleasing everybody [*,*].

European Parliament is getting ready for a plenary session next week [*] : MEPs will talk about the Europe 2020 project[*] and the SWIFT agreement – agreement on the transfer of bank data to the US to fight terrorism – in its new version [*,*]

In the member states, Dutch voted this week for early legislative elections [*,*] : Liberals are just ahead of the Labour, while the far right comes third [*] ; those result are not in favor of the supporters of Europe [*].

Belgians will vote this Sunday 13th – for early legislative elections too – in elections dominated by linguistic and territorial tensions[*]